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Month: January 2017

I’ve had a rough “Dad Transition Period” as my young adult daughters have begun their new lives. Recently, my very wise — if slightly irritated — wife said I needed to “redefine myself” to help smooth the road ahead.

Diz turned to the man lying in the bunk above his own in their six-foot by ten-foot cell.

“What’d you say?”

“You heard me.” Jailed for the third time in his 25 years, currently for drug possession and use, Branford was familiar with “street crazy” – the showy bravado effected to earn position or reputation or credibility. Yet this old man truly made him nervous. Branford glared at Diz from his top bunk. “Stop talkin’ to yourself in the mirror like that.”

“Aww, what’s the matter? Does it bother you?”

“To be honest, yea, it does.” Branford turned full on his side. “You been actin’ like some nutty ass old geezer for weeks, man. Is that why you called Diz? ‘Cause you act all dizzy and shit?”

The kid wasn’t entirely wrong.

The truth was, John’s mother loved jazz and had named him after her favorite trumpet player — John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie.

However, the innocent nickname came to mean something more ominous as John’s erratic temper and dark behavior earned him half a dozen trips to jail for petty offenses as a teen; then, when dark turned deadly, a life sentence for murder twenty-three years ago.

Diz usually explained the unfortunate evolution of his name to the prisoners that passed through his cell over the years — most who were too young or stupid to know Dizzy Gillespie, much less care about jazz, America’s most significant cultural contribution.

Normally, Diz wrapped the story in a good-natured “I-know-I-am-an-old-man” laugh. A joke about how, in his sorry case, life and art collided in a way that no one could have anticipated. Certainly not his sainted mother! He was impressed that Branford had somehow pieced together enough facts after only a few weeks together – or at least had picked enough information from the prison grapevine – to connect the dots about Diz’s past. Though Branford’s conclusion wasn’t entirely accurate, it was “close enough for jazz,” as the musicians say.

Still, today Diz didn’t feel like schooling this boy on the finer points of jazz, irony or anything else. A tension he’d never known gripped his mind like fingers struggling to grasp a ball that is slightly too big for them. Plus, there was no harm in keeping the kid in the dark a bit. If nothing else, the rumors about his past infractions gave Diz a slight upper hand in a place where any advantage was golden. He purposely kept his answer non-committal, neither confirming nor denying Branford’s conclusion. Diz offered only a conciliatory chuckle. “You’re pretty smart, for a young punk.”

“Really man, I don’t much care. I just wish you’d be quiet so I can get some sleep. Ain’t no one going to answer you from the other side of that steel.”

“Well, you seem like a good kid, so I’ll try to control myself. But the truth is, somebody is going to answer me.”

Branford sat up in his bunk, hunching over and ducking his head slightly before it scraped the ceiling. “Who? It sure ain’t me.”

Diz backed away from the stainless steel mirror attached to the stainless steel sink, adjacent to the stainless steel toilet. He leaned against the wall on the other side of the cell, facing Branford. “You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“This is January 2017, man.”

“Dude, I know what year it is! I didn’t smoke that much crack!”

“There’s a new law this year that lets a few inmates go before the end of their time if they change something about themselves.” Diz’s eyes twinkled with the prospect of freedom after nearly a quarter century behind bars.

“Who told you that? I talked to my lawyer not three days ago and he didn’t mention any new law.” Branford dropped from the bunk, his bare feet hitting the concrete floor nearly noiselessly.

Diz quickly crossed in front of his cellmate and sat on his own bed. Branford spun around to keep Diz in his line of sight and nearly tripped on the toilet. Diz liked to do things like this, knowing the tight space they shared was even tighter for those unused to navigating it. Sixty square feet is a lot smaller than it looked in the movies. One more way to let the new guy know that the old guy was in control…

“Well I can’t speak for the quality of your Public Aid attorney, but I got this directly from the warden herself. She told me and a bunch of other long timers that the state has a new clemency program – hey, you know what clemency is, right?”

“Yea, yea, asshole. Just ‘cause I did a little dope doesn’t make me a dope.”

Diz cracked a thin, teasing smile. “Ok, I just wanted to be sure. I know you druggies sometimes can’t remember your own names much less understand big legal concepts.”

About fed up with his cellmate’s riling, Branford did not return the sharp-humored grin. “Go on, man,” he said flatly.

“Anyway, she said the state is going to give early parole to ten lifers who ‘redefine themselves.’ ”

“‘Redefine themselves?’ What the hell does that mean?”

A long, hollow silence ballooned inside the cell.

“Well?” Branford’s volume rose like a child waiting for the end of a bedtime story.

Diz rose from the bunk and paced like the caged animal, back and forth from the barred cell door to the concrete back wall. He stopped and stared up at the three-foot wide by two-foot high window in the center of the wall, seven feet from the floor. The window was too high for anyone to reach. Even if he did think about escaping now and again, six bars sectioned the window into narrow gaps breached only by the sun light – which shone, mockingly, in the mornings on the floor in long, cold, muddy-gray stripes.

Diz gaped silently at the window for another 30 seconds. “She didn’t say. Women piss me off, man. They say half of what they actually mean, and then you’re supposed to just somehow figure out the rest. And God forbid if you get it wrong!”

Branford, who had a serious girlfriend, understood and laughed. Diz spun quickly on his heel to face his cellmate, his eyes now flecked with frustration and anxiety.

“I mean, I can’t change my past. Hell, if I could go back to when I was your age, I would change a million things just to get rid of the guilt that eats me alive some days. I can’t change who I am here. I don’t pretend to be no model prisoner, but I do my best to keep my head down, fly under the radar. I do my work. I keep my cell clean. Mostly I just read my books and listen to my jazz.”

“To what? Jazz?” Branford saw an opening. Like a boxer he jabbed, playfully flicking a verbal punch at Diz. “Oh, you mean that Old Man shit? I don’t listen to anything before when I was born!”

The thinnest hint of a smile creased Diz’s face as he mentally scored a point for his cellmate. Touché, punk …

“No, really man, all joking aside, I think the answer is right in front of your face,” Branford said.

Diz stepped quickly toward Branford, hands waiving, voice rising, exasperation exploding. “What do you mean? This is my life in the balance and she’s talking in circles like the goddamned Riddler from Batman or something! I feel like the top of my head is coming off. What’s the fucking answer, man?”

Branford cautiously put his hands on Diz’s chest – a dangerous move to make with a man doing a life sentence for murder. “Slow down brother!” Branford ordered. “Sit down for a second and just breathe for a bit.”

Diz collapsed onto his bunk and cradled his head in his palms.

Branford talked low and slow, as if to a child in the throes of a temper tantrum. Except this “child’s” tantrums could hurt many people – and had killed at least one for (allegedly) looking too hungrily at his baby sister.

“Look, the warden said you had to redefine yourself to get out of here, right? You’re absolutely right. You can’t change Yesterday. It is what it was.”

“Right.”

And you can’t change Today. It’s not in your control, at least not in here.”

As if on cue, one of the ever-present guards sauntered by, peeking in and trying a little too obviously to eavesdrop. Diz stared at the guard and sighed. “You got that right.”

“So the only thing you can do anything about is Tomorrow.”

“I don’t underst…What are you…? C’mon, man! Say what you mean!”

“Change your Tomorrow! She said redefine yourself, right? Well redefine your Tomorrow. Does it mean change your politics? Learn to control your temper? Take up a new hobby? Earn a college degree? Hell if I know! You’re the only one who can figure that out. And I sure as hell don’t know how or why that would let you get out of here. But I bet that’s what the warden’s talking about. Women are always saying some shit like that! It’s confusing as all get out. But in its way, it makes sense. Redefine yourself. Let go of the past. Make a new future. No one can do it for you, man. You gotta do it for yourself!”

Diz raised his head and stared silently at Brandon. He couldn’t believe that this crack-smoking kid had produced such a simple, yet profound insight. A sudden wave of guilt crashed on the shores of his conscience.

“Listen man, I…” Then, just as he was about to apologize for everything he’d done and thought about his cellmate in the couple of weeks that they’d bunked together, the same guard appeared again in front of their cell.

“Diz, let’s go!” the guard ordered. Invisible hands magically unlocked and opened the door. “The warden wants to see you.”

Diz rose from the bunk and turned toward the guard. “One second, please, sir.” He turned back to Branford. Confusion and fear and exhaustion conspired to etch new lines in his face, adding to those that middle age had already dug. But his eyes sparkled again with excitement. “I’m not sure what’s gonna happen here. I don’t know if I’ll be back.”

“I hope not,” Brandon said. “Nothing personal, but I won’t miss you talking to yourself in that mirror.”

Diz smiled, turned his back to the guard, shook Branford’s hand and held it. He squinted hard, effecting his best “Dirty Harry” stare. “If I don’t come back…just know that it’s completely your fault.” His eyes widened as a grin replaced the mock scowl. “And if I ever see you again on the outside, I won’t be holding it against you.”

“Based on what I heard about you, that’s good to know!”

“I said let’s go!” the guard barked. “I have more to do today than be your personal escort service!”

Diz reached the front of the cell in two short strides. He looked right and peered at himself in the steel mirror…Something looks different…But what? He broke his gaze. “Oh, by the way.” He looked over his left shoulder. “My mom named me for Dizzy Gillespie, the great jazz trumpet player. Just thought you should know.”

Actually, it is, kinda-sorta, because…well, you know, everything is now — at least for the next four years (or until he’s impeached) as he shares his every world peace-threatening mind fart, one infantile Tweet at a time. (So sad!)

For many, Trump’s 2016 presidential election provides a new, and breathtakingly-low water mark – like, the Red Sea after being parted-low — for how bad things can be (or, at least, seem.)

Toss a few shovels-full of dirt into the grave of 2016 for the deaths of dozens of truly important, brilliant, thoughtful, creative and influential people and yes, it’s pretty easy to crown this year as one of the worst in recent memory.

But not for me.

To be perfectly clear:

Seeing Trump elevated to the highest position in the free world was heartbreaking, mind numbing, logic twisting and spirit crushing for me and millions of others who are deeply concerned about how his election will impact human relations and the state of our Union.

And to lose such cultural luminaries and world figures as (among many others) Muhammed Ali, Gene Wilder, Garry Marshall, David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Prince (PRINCE!!), Merle Haggard, Elie Wiesel, Antonin Scalia, Shimon Peres, Fidel Castro, George Martin, Harper Lee, John Glenn – and yes, even “Mrs. Brady,” Florence Henderson –all in one calendar year defies even the stoutest sense of reason and reasonability.

This, on top of the usual assortment of terror, trauma and tragedy, inhumanity, incivility and infidelity with which we at the so-called top of the food chain typically batter each other.

Not to mention the Killer Clown Craze!

Yet, 2016 was a good year for me, for a simple, yet-profoundly important reason.

As with most good things in my life, it (mostly) wasn’t about me.

Because in 2016, I saw my oldest child, whose hand and heart I held first and first held at the start of her life, start a new life.

A life as a bright, talented, thoughtful, insightful, loving, empathetic and happy young adult, now supported by a partner who has put Emma on a pedestal (though the pedestal can never be high enough, in my paternal view.)

It’s hard to explain the feeling of knowing that you had a small part in making your child truly happy. Kind of like trying to explain the feeling of loving pets to someone who has never had a pet. Both experiences are nonsensical to anyone who has not lived them. My first born is happier than she’s ever been. For as long as it lasts – and I hope and believe and trust that it will last forever — I was there to see that joy at its first radiant blooming.

I saw my second child, who’s never met a hill too high to try climbing, claw her way up a mountain nine-fingered.

Olivia finished college, earning an Associate’s Degree in Hospitality and Restaurant Management. For many people her age, this wouldn’t be, shouldn’t be, and isn’t such a huge accomplishment.

Except that she started her college career aiming for an Associate’s Degree in Culinary Arts. She was well on her way, 10 weeks from the finish line of a 20-month accelerated program that allowed her no breaks and very little time for much else besides school and a part-time job.

Then she cut the holy hell out of her right index finger – a key digit for, you know, holding knives and other kitchen utensils important for the making of food.

She bled more than she cried. At least initially. Until she realized — after a surgery to repair ligament, nerve and tendon damage and a second surgery to clean up the first surgery – that her culinary dreams had to be put on a back burner, probably indefinitely.

Many would have gotten sad or angry or depressed. Livie – for whom the dictionary definition of “grit” should say, “See Olivia” – got bored.

Six months later, she enrolled in a new school, taking a new direction, facing new challenges. Soon after, she called me. “Dad, I still like cooking, but I kind of like running the restaurant better,” she said. I knew right then that she had beat them all.

I saw my wife overcome several significant personal challenges and finally — Finally! — get some shard of the professional responsibility, recognition and appreciation she so richly deserves.

Did I say finally?

The personal hurdles included, most prominently, a major surgery that kept her out of work for eight long weeks. As she has been from the moment she started “stalking” me to get me to ask her out, she was a model of patience, peace and determination in her recovery.

Coincidentally, the professional accolades followed soon after Kellie returned to work. Understand that Kellie is part of the first wave of women for whom a job outside the home was not only allowed, but expected. Instead she delayed her professional aspirations for family, friends, spouse and kids for most of her young adult life. So it caused a big wrinkle in her universe when she returned to work full-time a few years ago in her chosen field, rather than working just any old job to bring home a paycheck.

She was hired for one of those “you-have-the-responsibility-but-not-the-title-pay-or-authority” type jobs that often fall to employees who work harder and are more dedicated than the official job description calls for. To say she flourished dulls the word’s sheen.

However, this year management took note. Two raises and a title bump followed, proving what I’ve known for more than 30 years: Kellie is the kind of talented, hard-working leader that any company would be proud to call its own.

And I couldn’t be happier or prouder.

Not for myself. Clearly I had little to do with any of their successes. But for them, whom I love. They are the better for their vision, commitment and courage in the face of adversity, and for the success they have earned through hard work and perseverance. And I am better by association. Just as a rope made of bundled cords is tougher than the individual strands, I am more resilient as a part of them, as they are as a part of me.

The many “big” things that surround us are indeed important, but in the end the “small” things are what really matter. I cannot fix The World Around Me. But I can make sure that the world around me – my family, my friends, myself — is strong. Happy. Fulfilled.

Often, the greatest glory comes in shining the beam on someone else. Humbly subjugating, rather than vainly celebrating oneself. So that everyone shares some of the reflected light.

This vital Life Truth helped me navigate the acidic haze of what, by many yardsticks was a terrible year portending worse things to come. Everyone from the smallest child to the President of the United States would do well to learn, remember and practice it.